Kalia Her PHYS 52 SeminarDr. KNovember 17, 2014

MEMORY IN THE MAKINGHOW THE BRAIN MAKES

MEMORIES

1. A little bit of History & Fun Facts 2. How it might work & Diff erent types of Memory3. What We Still Don’t Know4. The College Life of Marcus Wallace

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Study of Memory dates back 2000 years – Aristole’s time

First hypothesis: Natural and Artificial 1880’s: fi rst scientific approach to Memory by

German philosopher Herman Ebbinghaus by conducting experiments

1949: Accepted theory of “neurons that fi re together, wire together” – Discovered by Donald Hebb

1968: Atkinson–Shiff rin model

A LITTLE BIT OF HISTORY & FUN FACTS

Over 100 billion neurons Max capacity of our Short-term memory – 7 digits TV kills your memory – Additional 1 hour per day

increases development of Alzheimer’s by 1.3% in later years

The brain produces enough electricity to power a light bulb

SOME FUN FACTS

Alexander the Great remembered all the names of his soldiers – just 30,000

Mozart was able to play and write down all the notes from a song he heard – only once

SOME MEMORY GURUS

Various Models – currently accepted is “The Working Memory Model”

Three diff erent stages: Encoding, Storage, RetrievalMain Players: Frontal Cortex, Hippocampus, NeuronsVarious factors aff ect Memory

HOW IT MIGHT WORK

Short-term or “working memory”: Present conscienceness – lasts only 20-30 seconds

Long-term Explicit

Episodic Semantic

Implicit Procedural

DIFFERENT TYPES OF MEMORY

Used to believe memory was stored in the cortexes – but may not be fully true

Unsure of how exactly regions of the brain know when to store a memory

New discoveries: Hyperthymesia - condition of extremely detailed autobiographical memory Marilu Henner Jill Price Brad Williams

WHAT WE STILL DON’T KNOW

Scenario 1: Studying for Calculus 233 Current hypothesis of memory: Working memory

model Frontal Cortex, Sensory Cortex, Thalamus, Hippocampus,

Amygdala Factors for simulation: Emotion, Attention, Number of

Study Sessions How Short-term becomes Long-term Based on Hebb’s Law

THE COLLEGE LIFE OF MARCUS